Habitat Studies

Reconstruption of Tropical Rainforests is very difficult for Megafauna in Europe. Some efforts have done to evolving indoor exhibits for large mammals like okapi or pygmy hippopotamus, but almost never for cassowary so this fantastic animal is often displayed like a common bird in a simple paddock without reminder elements of its extraordinary habitat.
The biologist Joan Bentrupperbäumer has done an incredible study in situ about cassowaries in early 1990th. Alone and without great equipment he spent three years in the National Parks of North Queensland to observe this extraordinary species. He worked in “free-contact” with this so dangerous animals to collect more and more informations about their habits in wild. He published a majestic work divided in four sections about cassowaries for James Cook University in 1997. He dedicated a special section to habitat characteristics like landform, vegetation and climate in his studies. He established five different biomes for Double-wattled cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) in North Queensland based on landform patterns, and major floral themes and structural formations. “The primary distinction was between rainforest and non-rainforest vegetation based on descriptions used by Walker and Hopkins (1984)”.  While rainforest was a singular, non-rainforest were subdivided in four different biomes like woodlands, swamp forests, beach/foreshore forests and mangrove forests. The following contents are an overview of vegetation in five biomes by Joan Bentrupperbäumer.